Non, je ne regrette rien
by bring.me.sunshine
Summary: Hermione is being tormented by her life decisions, but a rogue social media post puts her straight. Written for Round 2 of The Houses Competition (Year Three).


House: Gryffindor

Position: Year 5

Category: Standard

Prompt: [Time] 12:24

Word Count: 1697

Finger hovering over the mouse, Hermione sighs. It's been one of those days where she's got absolutely nothing useful done. Granted, if being miserable and maudlin for most of the day counts as useful, then she's certainly achieved that - and it's that self-pity and misery that's led her to create a Facebook account.

She doesn't really understand it. Sure, she might be Muggle-born, but she missed out on the technology boom; she gets on better than Ron with the television and the phone and the computer, but they've never interested her, so she never really bothered to learn their finer points. After all, who needs technology when you've got magic?

She laughs bitterly to herself.

A surge of spontaneity overcomes Hermione, and she finds herself pressing "Sign up". As if to reassure herself, she keeps thinking that she's only doing this out of nosiness, only to have a little fun and see what people she hasn't seen since she was small are doing. Sometimes, when she's nostalgic for the Muggle world, she'll take the Tube to the Ministry, and it was whilst she was melting on the boiling hot Central line that she heard some girls talking about this new "Facebook" thing. Just a while back, she'd set up an Internet connection at home, for her elderly father-in-law's amusement more than anything else. Naively, she'd also thought that she and Ron might get a laugh out of it together.

She'd been wrong. But then again, not much made Ron laugh these days - at least, not when she was about.

A screen flashes up in front of her, demanding that Hermione enter the names of her "friends". She turns to the neat black notebook sat next to her on her desk. In true Hermione fashion, she's written a list of all the people she can remember from primary school, before Hogwarts. Gradually, she works her way down the list, searching for each name.

Felicia Green - Hermione's first friend from primary school. They'd bonded over a shared love of Winnie-the-Pooh. She's now a teacher of English, with dyed blonde hair and two adorable twin babies. Hermione can't help but smile wistfully at the look of motherly love on Felicia's face in some of her photos.

Tobias Weatherby - the boy who used to pull Hermione's plaits, all because (as he announced dramatically when they were seven) he was in love with her. Now backpacking around Europe. He's posted pictures of him floating idly down the canals of Venice, of the emerald Northern Lights twinkling above Iceland. Hermione laughs when she realises that the furthest she's been since she became an adult is Devon. Specifically, Ottery St Catchpole, to visit her in-laws.

Anna McIntyre - the girl a few years older than Hermione, who gave her flute lessons. Now a member of the London Symphonic Orchestra, having graduated from the University of Oxford with a first class honours degree in Music. Hermione thinks of her own flute, laying forgotten in a box somewhere in her parents' house.

The list becomes smaller, and Hermione sends friend requests to a good few people on it. Of course, she doesn't expect them to remember her, let alone accept her as their "friend": she hasn't seen them in at least fifteen years. To them, she might be remembered as the geeky girl who went to boarding school in Scotland - nothing more, probably less.

To her surprise, however, a few do accept (probably, Hermione thinks cynically, just to get their "friend" count up), and their silly posts start popping up on the screen. For a little while, Hermione entertains herself by scrolling through pictures of people she barely knows, of places she doesn't recognise. After a while, a plain picture - just a white background with black writing - catches her attention for some reason.

 _Like this post and something AMAZING will happen to you at 12:24! It's true!_

Hermione snorts. It's the sort of thing she can imagine dear old Professor Trelawney coming out with: in other words, a load of total rubbish. And yet, even though she knows it's just rubbish, she finds herself liking the picture. God knows she could do with something good happening to her.

Sighing, Hermione decides that she's had enough of Facebook for one day - it's only making her more maudlin, and she knows full well that she's got things to do. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she gasps to see that it's gone eleven - which, she realises with annoyance, she should have guessed by the inky darkness outside her bedroom window. Quickly, she flicks back to what she'd originally been looking at on the Internet, before she got distracted by the wonders of Facebook: flight tickets. Specifically, flight tickets to America, to Pennsylvania's Amish Country. It's weird, it's niche, but it's the simplest way of life Hermione can imagine.

She's made her mind up: she's sick of magic.

It's confining her to this cramped flat above Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, just because her darling husband and his brother work there. There's a whole world out there waiting for her to explore, yet she feels like she can't - just because it's the Muggle world, and who wants to do anything the Muggle way when you've got magic?

She's nearly done it. She's got it all up on the screen: one-way ticket from London Heathrow to Philadelphia, with a train taking her from the big city to the middle of nowhere. No whizzbangs, no sparks, just the magic of nature. All she needs to do is press the button, and she can go.

Yet she can't.

Regret is a strange thing. It gnaws away at your soul, reminding you of all the wonderful things you could have done in life but didn't. Yet it's an infuriating feeling, because part of you is screaming that you did the right things: you took the right paths, you made the right decisions. No-one is judging you, and yet you feel like the whole world is racing past you, taunting you as they show off the perfect life they have, the chain of perfect decisions they made to get there.

This, Hermione has to admit to herself, is why she's sat here. Regret is the reason why she taunted herself on Facebook, peering wistfully into the lives of people she could have been great friends with. Why couldn't she have forced herself to keep up her old friendships, even whilst she was at Hogwarts? Surely she could have managed it - written, or something. Instead, she's always been the loner; even at Hogwarts, she was just the nerdy bookworm, known for being friends with Harry Potter. None of the other girls had particularly liked her. The only friends she had now were Ginny and Harry - and even they had been distant, gently reprimanding her when she complained about Ron's growing coldness over the past few weeks.

They'd come up with plenty of excuses. You have to stop nagging him, they'd said. It's how Ron is...

Oh, she knows what Ron's like after all these years. She knows full well that she's twenty-five years old and already living the life of someone double her age: get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, go to bed. And recently, that's been mixed with Ron's surliness, sarcasm and silence. She's tried talking to him, but she just can't find a reason for his behaviour. The only logical explanation is that he regrets things as much as she - maybe - does.

Logical and reasonable as she is, she just can't see any other way: she needs to leave. Not necessarily permanently. Just until she knows where she wants to be.

Her finger is hovering over the button when she's startled by the bang of the front door.

"'Mione? 'Mione, where are you?"

"Ron?" she cries. Her heart lifts: he sounds...not cheerful, but desperate. Not angry, but...in need. "I'm in the bedroom!"

The tall, gangly figure of her husband falls through the bedroom door. Ron's face is white and drawn.

"'Mione," he groans. "I'm sorry..." He's slurring his words.

"Ron...have you been drinking?" Hermione asks uncertainly, gently guiding him to sit down on the bed.

"Only Firewhiskey...only a couple...'Mione, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have opened it. I didn't mean to..."

"Opened...opened what, Ron?" Hermione asks, trying to steady her voice.

"From St. Mungo's...the letter...I didn't read the name on the front properly..."

Hermione's blood runs cold. The only letter she could be getting from St. Mungo's would be...

"I didn't think - I didn't think I could do it, 'Mione...freaked out...threw it on the fire..."

Taking him firmly by the shoulders, Hermione forces herself to stare straight into his eyes. "Ron, just tell me. Tell me what's going on."

"You're pregnant," Ron whispers.

Hermione's mouth drops open, her grip still tight on Ron's shoulders. She'd suspected it, and sent off for a test from St. Mungo's. In fact, she'd started to think that an owl had accidentally dropped the results somewhere, it had been so long...

"I didn't think I could do it, 'Mione. Be a dad. So..."

"...you ignored me," Hermione finishes.

"Yeah," Ron mutters. "But I've realised...I was being an idiot. I'll be the best dad...the best husband...I can be. I'm sorry, 'Mione..."

He wraps his arms tightly around her, as if he'll never let go. And Hermione realises, she doesn't want him to to. Ron's an idiot, but he's her idiot.

"I love you, Hermione," he whispers in her ear.

"I love you too, Ron," she whispers back, a sob rising in her chest.

Hermione's never believed in a God, but she's certain that something - someone - stopped her from buying those tickets. She doesn't have any regrets: she's safe, in a home with the man who she loves with all her heart, and who loves her just as much. Screw travelling to Iceland, or playing the flute: she's happy.

Gently, she unwinds herself from Ron. "Let's get to bed. It's late. In fact," she says, glancing at the clock, "it's - "

She takes a sharp intake of breath.

" - 12:24."


End file.
